LOS ANGELES — Fido the dog and Ginger the cat need not worry about being replaced by a new baby — in fact, they could be helping parents raise healthier children.
A new study finds that children who lived with dogs or cats during their first year of life got sick less frequently than kids from pet-free zones. The study, published in Monday’s edition of the journal Pediatrics, provides fresh evidence for the counterintuitive notion that an overly clean environment might not be ideal for babies.
Sharing a home with a pet might be an early form of cross-training for the body’s defense systems. Previous research has shown that owning a cat or dog was associated with less risk of gastroenteritis in young children.
In the new study, researchers found that cats and dogs were linked to a reduced incidence of various illnesses. The effect was stronger for dogs than for cats. Babies who lived with dogs were 31 percent more likely to be in good health than their counterparts who didn’t, and babies with cats had a 6 percent advantage over those without feline family members.
